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Sunday, March 29, 2009

A Caturday to Remember…

Wanna hear about my experiment yesterday? I call it the One Hour Experiment. I had a million things to do yesterday, and I'm such a procrastinator. I just wanted to cross some things off my insanely large list.

My trip to Starbucks was the best trip to Starbucks ever. The trip back was even better. One should never conduct an experiment without a fabulous excursion to the coffeeshop they love so much, IMHO.

So after that, here's what I did. I wrote down everything I had to do and I gave each task exactly one hour of my full attention - I actually set a timer at the beginning of every hour to make sure I didn't cheat. On a sunny, purrfect Caturday, with two little furry temptations draped across my desk,I launched the experiment. I spent an hour on my fundraiser, finishing my 20 documents I had to create in Illustrator, uploaded them to Kinkos for printing, with 18 minutes to spare. No glances at Google Reader or email. Next - for a fun break, Google Reader. I had more than 1000 unread items again. Finished that with four minutes to spare. I used all the spare minutes to do laundry and whatever else I wanted. Hour three - cleaning. No problem - 25 minutes to spare, which I filled with daydreaming, Twitter, email, videos. Hour four - organized the contents of my new bookcase in my stamp room. Hour five - lunch - made chicken salad with onions, walnuts and Mt. Olive banana peppers. Hour six - put away everything from the $7 stamp sale and stamp camp. Hour seven - returned emails and finished some last touches on the charity stamps for A Place to Bark (you will love them). Hour eight - STAMPED! That was all I felt like doing in my experiment, so I took kitteh pictures and relaxed till my massage. Not so much a massage - a torture session to get my knots out. My skin hurts today. But I can move.

I never would have gotten all that done if I'd done it freeform. I would have spent much more than an hour on Google Reader, chased butterflies, etc. An hour isn't that long if you have something you're putting off or don't like to do, and it's plenty of time for something fun. You should try it if you're behind. The only way it works is if you do not allow distractions. You just do the one thing for the hour, and if you finish early, do whatever you want with the leftovers.

Now speaking of distractions, it's GORGEOUS outside here. Just perfect days the last few days. I love spring. I love quotes about spring. I can't wait for a walk today after I get a few more things out of the way. So yesterday in my stamping hour I stamped a little spring card, with a greeting I printed first onto my white cardstock. I color matched the red to my moonlight pen I used for my little redwings. Actually, I dont' know if these are redwings, I just know they have red wings. To me, that makes them redwings. They were supposed to be robins, but I accidentally colored their wings. :) Anyway, I stamped the tree from Branch Out in black and then the little birdies in Sahara Sand. The Gelly Roll Moonlight pens are nice and opaque for my little splash of red. I made little leaf buds (click for larger view) with my green Gelly Roll metallic. Since I organized my pens I'm on a bit of a pen kick. I mean look at this - don't you want to use every pen in here???

I have not gone so far as to set a timer, but let me ask you: what happens if you do not get a task done in the allotted hour? What if my laundry is not done being folded? May I stop folding and move on to the next task? Hmmm?

:-)

Cute kitties. I wish my kitty was not an 'only' cat, cuz I've been wanting a second one for a long time, but she will have none of it.

Your kitties are so cute!! I was cracking up reading about how your birds ARE redwings, and that they were supposed to be robins. Then I saw all of your pens and now I can't think about anything else. If they're gone, I'll tell you it was Maddie. She went on a pen-eating craze. Very abnormal in cats, but that's what it was if your pens just happen to disappear. Oh, and she ate the nice case holding them all too ;)

Great card, I love the timer idea, and what a fabulous kitteh story. We're starting to pack up to go home ... I don't want to leave Texas! My DH mapped out a different route so we avoid Austin. I'm not happy; I love driving through cities. When I navigate, I make sure we drive right thru the center of them. I've taken us thru St. Louis, Atlanta, Columbus and Dallas to name a few ... during rush hour! He wasn't happy ... but how else would one see all those cool buildings?

Penerella, Queen of the Pens is a perfect title ... I like it.Jeannette

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Hi. I'm Lydia. I'm the Community Manager at Splitcoast by day, an artist, a teacher and an animal lover in every other moment. I do participate in affiliate programs at Stampin' Up! and Blick Art Materials and others, and may receive small compensation when you purchase using my links, at no additional cost to you.

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